Theoretical and empirical studies on "unidentified child abuse victims" : prevalence and psychological influences

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In this project, we conducted the following studies during the period of 3 years :1.We investigated the prevalence of "unidentified child abuse (CA) victims' in college students and examined influences of CA on their psychological adjustment (dissociation, depression, self-esteem). Through this study, we developed "Multi-form Child Abuse Inventory (MCAI)."2.We tested clinical validity of MCAI by applying it to abused children in home and convergent validities with college students. It was shown to have good validities.3.We developed "Child Abuse Symptom Inventories" for 1-3 and 4-5 year olds. Then, we conducted a large-scale study, by asking teachers to file out the inventories for their children in daycare centers in 3 cities of Prefecture F, in order to investigate the prevalence of unidentified abused children. Based on our findings, we estimated about 1.5% of children in centers that can be identified as "unidentified abused children" who have not been reported to PC Agencies.4.We exploratorily investigated reasons of daycare-center teachers having difficulties of reporting abused children whom they found in their centers, by qualitatively analyzing their responses to open-ended questionnaire.5.We examined the prevalence of abusive acts committed by daycare-center teachers by asking college students to retrospectively report their experiences while in centers as a child.6.We examined the prevalence of unidentified child abuse victims in outpatients of a large-scale psychiatric hospital.7.To explore possible causes of the difficulties that regular people might experience for reporting abused children, we examined differences among professionals vs. non-professionals (14 occupations, including college students and housekeepers) in terms of expertise of child abuse, by asking them to evaluate the degree of severity of abusive acts in MCAI. We found that professionals perceive abusive acts as less abusive than non-professional people.